Even the ‘green’ option has environmental costs
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To solve the climate crisis, we need to stop pumping greenhouse gases into the air.
Cars produce a lot of these, so the solution is to replace them with electric cars.
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And that’s a great solution for car manufacturers because they can just keep on selling vehicles to individuals.
They don’t dirty up the city air.
But they are only green when compared to today’s oil-burning vehicles.
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Building an electric car is still building a car.
AnEV’s biggest problem is its batteries.
The main material needed is lithium, and this comes from mining or from salt deserts.
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And like any natural resource, the amount is limited.
The question that this poses is, how can we have enough lithium?
This depends on how we can rebuild our electric grid and find other solutions and innovations in battery-making.
Recycling batteries might be the most important thing we can do when transitioning to EVs.
Batteries are already big business.
Ride-hailing services like Uber and Lyft will decrease the need for personal vehicles for some people.
And that might be the biggest barriergetting people to give up their cars.
